Zap2it Closing Down

[kaizen]

Yahoo is unlikely to even notice this activity occurring, but if they do, and try to stop the hundreds/thounsands of requests that come through in quick succession as the grabber trawls their site, then you can always look at p2p solutions so no one PC is responsible for getting all the data. This way it just looks like normal web traffic to them. This type of solution isnt as complex as it sounds.

I'll second that; many folks are already (in fact WE are) scraping Zap2it.com for movie listing data - et thet're not rushing to pull the plug on the 'abuse' there.

Let's face it, zap2it finally realized that they're free XML data was competing head to head with their ad laden html service. If you actually own the 'competition' it only makes sense to shut it down.

You're going to have to work awful hard to convince me that TRIBUNE MEDIA, one of the largest media conglomerates in the US was 'unable to stop the abuse'...

[nitrogen_widget]

Yeah, thats probably worth looking into aswell. Its likely they havnt tied things down as much as Microsoft for the MCE data.

I just tried it, it won't let me do anything with the EPG unless I have a hardware tuner card installed.

I'll need to set up a test PC as I really don't like the idea of putting it on a working GBPVR system.

[Pioneer4x4]

Is anything available directly from Comcast (for Comcast users)? I noticed that the paper monthly guides, and their web data are from Zap2it. So Zap2it must be getting some good fees from them.

[sub]

I just tried it, it won't let me do anything with the EPG unless I have a hardware tuner card installed.

I'll need to set up a test PC as I really don't like the idea of putting it on a working GBPVR system.

When you try it in a machine with a card, log the network traffic with Ethereal/Wireshark. It'd be great if this network interaction isnt encrypted.

[Spartan]

I've already written a program that parses all the data from the schedule grid.

Mind if I ask how you are parsing the data? I parse data for the sportsscores plugin and am curious.

[elbryyan]

This is really putting a damper on my situation. I just built by PVR machine last night so I hope a decent solution is found so I don't have to explain to the wife why our new system is not working. I'm going to mess around with media portal again as I think I remember getting it to pull EPG data without using zap2it's listing. I could be wrong thought so I'll let you know.

[Ted the Penguin]

they are pulling the plug in september, so you have a bit of time, and we should get this sorted by then... since there seems to be some great interest in the problem

[sub]

I'm going to mess around with media portal again as I think I remember getting it to pull EPG data without using zap2it's listing. I could be wrong thought so I'll let you know.

They use this discontinued zap2it interface aswell (either via xmltv, or directly).

[brfish]

What can I do to make GBPVR pull guide data from Titan TV??

[sub]

What can I do to make GBPVR pull guide data from Titan TV??

If you write a program to extract TitanTV listings and save them in the xmltv file format, then GB-PVR will be able to use them.